V. I. Lenin

Declaration Of Rights
      Of The Working And Exploited People[1]

Written:3 January, 1918First Published:4 January, 1929 inPravdaNo. 2 andIzvestiaNo. 2.Source:Lenin’sCollected
      Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972,
      pp. 423-425Translated:Yuri Sdobnikov and George
      Hanna, Edited by George HannaTranscription & HTML Markup:Charles
      Farrell and David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveNovember,
      2000

The Constituent Assembly resolves:

I. 1. Russia is hereby proclaimed a Republic of Soviets
      of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
      Deputies. All power, centrally and locally, is vested in these
      Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is established on the
        principle of a free union of free nations, as a federation of
        Soviet national republics.

II. Its fundamental aim being to abolish all exploitation
      of man by man, to completely eliminate the division of society
      into classes, to mercilessly crush the resistance of the
      exploiters, to establish a socialist organisation of society and
      to achieve the victory of socialism in all countries, the
      Constituent Assembly further resolves:

1. Private ownership of land is hereby abolished. All
        land together with all buildings, farm implements and other
        appurtenances of agricultural production, is proclaimed the
        property of the entire working people.

2. The Soviet laws on workers’ control and on the
        Supreme Economic Council are hereby confirmed for the purpose
        of guaranteeing the power of the working people over the
        exploiters and as a first step towards the complete conversion
        of the factories, mines, railways, and other means of
        production and transport into the property of the
        workers’ and peasants’ state.

3. The conversion of all banks into the property of the
        workers’ and peasants’ state is hereby confirmed as
        one of the conditions for the emancipation of the working
        people from the yoke of capital.

4. For the purpose of abolishing the parasitic sections
        of society, universal labour conscription is hereby
        instituted.

5. To ensure the sovereign power of the working people,
        and to eliminate all possibility of the restoration of the
        power of the exploiters, the arming of the working people, the
        creation of a socialist Red Army of workers and peasants and
        the complete disarming of the propertied classes are hereby
        decreed.

III. 1. Expressing its firm determination
      to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital and
      imperialism, which have in this most criminal of wars drenched the
      world in blood, the Constituent Assembly whole-heartedly endorses
      the policy pursued by Soviet power of denouncing the secret
      treaties, organising most extensive fraternisation with the
      workers and peasants of the armies in the war, and achieving at
      all costs, by revolutionary means, a democratic peace between the
      nations, without annexations and indemnities and on the basis of
      the free self-determination of nations.

2. With the same end in view, the Constituent Assembly
        insists on a complete break with the barbarous policy of
        bourgeois civilisation, which has built the prosperity of the
        exploiters belonging to a few chosen nations on the
        enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in Asia,
        in the colonies in general, and in the small countries.

The Constituent Assembly welcomes the policy of the Council of
      People’s Commissars in proclaiming the complete
      independence of Finland, commencing the evacuation of troops
      from Persia, and proclaiming freedom of self-determination for
      Armenia.[2]

3. The Constituent Assembly regards the Soviet law on the
         cancellation of the loans contracted by the governments of
         the tsar, the landowners and the bourgeoisie as a first blow
         struck at international banking, finance capital, and
         expresses the conviction that Soviet power will firmly pursue
         this path until the international workers’ uprising
         against the yoke of capital has completely triumphed.

IV. Having been elected on the basis of party
      lists drawn up prior to the October Revolution, when the people
      were not yet in a position to rise en masse against the
      exploiters, had not yet experienced the full strength of
      resistance of the latter in defence of their class privileges, and
      had not yet applied themselves in practice to the task of building
      socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers that it
      would be fundamentally wrong, even formally, to put itself in
      opposition to Soviet power.

In essence the Constituent Assembly considers that now,
      when the people are waging the last fight against their
      exploiters, there can be no place for exploiters in any government
      body. Power must be vested wholly and entirely in the working
      people and their authorised representatives—the Soviets of
      Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

Supporting Soviet power and the decrees of the Council of
      People’s Commissars, the Constituent Assembly considers
      that its own task is confined to establishing the fundamental
      principles of the socialist reconstruction of society.

At the same time, endeavouring to create a really free and
      voluntary, and therefore all the more firm and stable, union of
      the working classes of all the nations of Russia, the Constituent
      Assembly confines its own task to setting up the fundamental
      principles of a federation of Soviet Republics of Russia, while
      leaving it to the workers and peasants of each nation to decide
      independently at their own authoritative Congress of Soviets
      whether they wish to participate in the federal government and in
      the other federal Soviet institutions, and on what terms.

[1]The draft of the declaration was placed before the All-Russia
      Central Executive Committee on January 3 (16), 1918, and adopted
      as a basis by a majority with two against and one abstention. It
      was referred to a Co-ordinating Commission for final
      drafting. The declaration was adopted by the All-Russia Central
      Executive Committee and published inIzvestiaon
      January 4 (17). On behalf of the Committee it was read out by
      Sverdlov at the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly on
      January 5 (18) and motioned for approval. The
      counter-revolutionary majority of the Assembly rejected the
      motion to discuss it. On January 12 (25), it was approved by the
      Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets and subsequently formed the
      basis of the Soviet Constitution.

Paragraph 2 of Lenin’s manuscript was altered by
      Stalin. The paragraph beginning with the words “In essence
      the Constituent Assembly considers...“ was written by
      Bukharin and edited
      by Lenin.

[2]On December 6 (19), 1917, the Finnish Diet adopted a declaration
      of Finland’s independence. In accordance with the
      nationalities policy of the Soviet state, the Council of Peoples
      Commissars, on December 18 (31), 1917, issued a decree on
      Finland’s independence. At the meeting of the government,
      Lenin personally handed the text of the decree to Prime Minister
      Svinhufvud, who led a Finnish Government delegation. On December
      22, 1917 (January 4, 1918), the decree on Finland’s
      independence was approved by the All-Russia Central Executive
      Committee.

On December 19, 1917 (January 1, 1918), in conformity with a
      treaty concluded between Russia and Germany, Austria-Hungary,
      Turkey and Bulgaria at Brest-Litovsk on December 2 (15), the
      Soviet Government proposed to the Persian Government to
      elaborate a common plan for the withdrawal of Russian troops
      from Persia.

On December 29, 1917 (January 11, 1918), the government issued
      the Decree on Turkish Armenia, which was published inPravdaNo. 227 on December 31, 1917 (January 13,
      1918).